CONFIDENTIAL
3
布政司署
香港下亞畢道
本署檔號 OUR REF.: SCR 15/3371/77
來函檔號 Your REF.:
R D/Clift Esq
Hong Kong & General Department, F CO
•fecte, Jee
THE HONG KONG/CHINA BOUNDARY
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
18 March, 1981
AKIC 04013
RAQLIYER IN RESISTRY NO. DI 2 2 APRIZOI
DC OFFICEA
C Enk 12 My mean
т For report
stands
ак
ATARY
PA 1Action Taken
$22.4
where
in
2013
2
I was interested to read John Weston's letter to you of 11 February about the request to the US National Geographic Society to mark the boundary differently from our usage and to alter the romanisation of local place
names.
2.
AN 2372
we
see (b
The Chinese are, of course, asking the National Geographic to follow exactly their own usage. On all their own maps they mark the boundary as running through the centres of Hua Hoi Wan (Deep Bay) and Mirs Bay. They also shift the Eastern part of the Square Boundary Westwards to meet the line bisecting Mirs Bay. As John Weston points out, this produces the extraordinary result that the small island of Ping Chau in Mirs Bay appears on Chinese maps as being in their waters, although we have police and military posts there, and also run regular ferry services without, so far as I know, any dispute with the Chinese.
3.
The use of pinyin Mandarin romanisation for place names also, of course, follows Chinese practice and fits with their thesis that Hong Kong is Chinese territory. Although the zeroxes enclosed with John Weston's letter are unclear, I think the Chinese have also suggested that National Geographic should follow their practice by marking Hong Kong as being "UK occupied".
•
I do not know when the Chinese first started producing maps on the present lines. Your researchers will doubtless be able to say. I expect it goes back for a long time.
5.
Needless to say, we do not follow the Chinese
Nor has there been any change in our own system of mapping, let alone any new agreement with the Chinese.
practice.
/contd...
CONFIDENTIAL